


When You're Ready, I'm Ready

by Unclesteeb



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Childhood Friends, Codependency, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, M/M, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2016-08-31
Packaged: 2018-08-12 04:07:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7919899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unclesteeb/pseuds/Unclesteeb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You ever think about getting help for real?” Sam asks, passing back the blunt. He normally wouldn't bring it up so soon into Bucky’s stay, but it's supposed to snow for like three days straight and that weed is good as shit. He figures Bucky's not going to run on him. </p><p>Bucky does make a face and eye Sam carefully as he hits the blunt again. “Why, so you can make an honest man out of me? Put a ring on my finger? Have 2.5 adopted children with me?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	When You're Ready, I'm Ready

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE READ THE TAGS. 
> 
> In this story, Sam and Bucky do NOT have a healthy relationship by any means. There is also graphic drug use. Sam and Bucky are both active drug addicts.

When Bucky shows up again, it’s the first day of winter. He shivers his way into Sam’s warm apartment, bringing the scent of freshly falling snow and a chill with him. 

“How long you staying for this time, baby?” Sam asks. 

“It’s fucking cold out.” Bucky says as a reply.

 

Sam gets him in the shower to warm up. He’s sitting on the toilet with the seat down, just listening to Bucky’s presence in his shower and wondering if he’s gonna get sick (sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn’t) when Bucky says, “Hey, remember that time when we were 14 and your mom caught us smoking a cigarette outside your house?”

Sam laughs. He does. “She beat my ass so bad, Buck. You got no idea.”

“Yeah I ‘member.” Sam can hear the sounds of Bucky washing out his long hair, the suds hitting the floor with a splash. “She doing okay?”

“Yeah, same as she was six months ago.”

“Good. What do you think she’d say if she knew we were still seeing each other?”

“She’d beat my ass some more.”

 

“Here,” Bucky says, throwing a wad of cash onto Sam’s coffee table. He’s thrown his hair into a sad excuse for a bun at the nape of his neck. He sits down next to Sam on the couch and shuffles up next to him. Sam starts counting the money. It’s a lot. 

“How’d you get this?”

“Robbed an asshole down in Manhattan.” Sam gives him a look. He shrugs. “Combat training is good for something.”

Sam does the math in his head quickly. With this money plus the bit he’s been saving (he always saves something out of every check for whenever Bucky drags himself back into his life again, and if Bucky doesn’t manage to make it back to him one time Sam figures he could at least bury the guy) they’re gonna be okay for a while. “We have a month.” he tells Bucky, leaning back into Bucky’s body. 

Bucky hums and kisses him. “That’s not including what we have to spend on shit though, if you didn’t bring any,” Sam says into Bucky’s mouth. 

Bucky shuts him up by sticking his tongue halfway down Sam’s throat. Sam laughs into the kiss. When Bucky pulls away he reaches into his backpack and tosses Sam a black cloth bag. Sam knows it’s where Bucky keeps all his drugs. He’s had the same bag since he was 13 fucking years old. Sam carefully dumps it out onto the table next to the money. Sam spots weed, bags of coke, and a shit ton of pills but no works. That mean’s Bucky’s stayed off the dope this time. He’s immensely grateful he won’t have to deal with Bucky withdrawing. That’s never fun. 

“So how did you get all this?” 

“Baby, you don’t even wanna know.” 

 

Bucky licks the edge of the blunt wrap and Sam takes a long pull of his cigarette. “Remember that time when we were five and we found that sick cat outside of church?”

“Mhm.” Sam says, he flicks the ashes off his cigarette and into the dumb Donald Duck mug he’s using as an ashtray. He only smokes when Bucky’s here. 

“Your dad brought it inside the church office and gave it milk.” Bucky recalls, folding the now weed-filled wrap up into something smoke-able. 

“Yeah and he let us keep it there until next Sunday. We came by every day after school to feed it and change its litter.”

Bucky nods and reaches over for Sam’s lighter. He flicks it and lights the blunt with it, inhaling a few times in quick succession to get it started. “Then he gave it to the kids down the street after church.” He’s trying to hold the smoke in when he says it, making his voice sound garbled and tinny. Then he blows it out on a loud exhale. He takes another hit and hands it to Sam. Puff, puff pass.

Sam takes a hit and feels the smoke burn his lungs. The edge of his head starts to tingle. He holds the smoke in for as long as he can stand it. “You weren't always bad, Barnes.” He says on an exhale. 

“I'm still not,” Bucky says, plucking the cigarette from where Sam rested it on the Donald Duck mug. “Remember Samuel, you are not bad. Addiction is a bad thing that happens to good people.”

“You're a good person who does bad things.” Sam parrots, remembering from that time when Sam’s mom had cried all over him until he went to rehab. It was a year after he had gotten back from deployment. Bucky had just left to go shoot up in some abandoned house for the first time since Sam hated having dope in the house. Bucky chose heroin over their relationship, their lifelong friendship. It wasn't a good time for either of them. Sam had gotten his shit together after that. Bucky had- well, done what Bucky does. Floated in and out of real life and Sam’s life and abandoned buildings and street corners. Most times getting high, some times not.

“You ever think about getting help for real?” Sam asks, passing back the blunt. He normally wouldn't bring it up so soon into Bucky’s stay, but it's supposed to snow for like three days straight and that weed is good as shit. He figures Bucky's not going to run on him. 

Bucky does make a face and eye Sam carefully as he hits the blunt again. “Why, so you can make an honest man out of me? Put a ring on my finger? Have 2.5 adopted children with me?”

Sam rolls his eyes, takes a drag from the cigarette and then stubs it out. “I don't want that.”

Bucky bites his bottom lip. Sam wants to suck it into his mouth. “What do you want then?”

Sam shrugs. “I wouldn't mind marrying you, but I don't want kids. I don't know, we could get decent jobs. Maybe use our G.I. Bill to go to school. Get wasted at hipster bars on Friday nights. You know, real people shit”

Bucky scoffs, “That sounds boring.”

“Boring isn't all bad. It would be nice having you around all the time.”

Bucky makes a sad noise in his throat and scoots closer to Sam on the couch. Sam runs his fingers over Bucky’s shoulder when he throws an arm across him. “Your arm feeling okay?” Sam asks. 

That's how Bucky had gotten hooked on the real shit, not the weed they were smoking as kids. He came home from Iraq on an honorable discharge from getting his left arm mostly mangled in an explosion. Got handed shit tons of painkillers and not enough psychiatric care. It went downhill from there.

“Yeah. Why the fuck did we think enlisting was a good idea again?” 

Sam laughs and leans in so that Bucky can press the blunt to his lips. “Propaganda.”

“You got that right, baby.”

“When we get married you can use your special forces combat training for good. Become a vigilante crime fighter.”

It makes Bucky smile, which was Sam’s goal. “I'd be a good superhero.” 

Sam nods in agreement. His head feels nice and fuzzy. 

“Shotgun me.” Bucky says. Sam takes a long drag from the blunt in Bucky’s fingers. Bucky brings his mouth close, so that it's almost touching Sam’s. Sam cups the back of his neck to keep him close. Sam lets the smoke out of his mouth and listens as Bucky inhales it. They stay close as Bucky lets the hit settle in his chest, then Bucky exhales into the room. The blunt’s almost gone in Bucky’s fingers. Sam’s high enough to worry if Bucky’s about to get burned when Bucky drops it into the mug and pulls their mouths together.

Sam moans when he feels Bucky’s tongue slide into his mouth. He tastes like weed and cigarettes and _home_. Bucky pulls at Sam so that Sam will sit in his lap. Sam rolls his hips into Bucky’s, his entire body tingling from all the heightened sensations. 

“Fuck me.” He says.

“I love you.” Bucky tells him when he’s moving inside of him. Sam believes him. _Do you love me more than this shit?_ Sam wants to ask. _Why don't you love me more than Drugs?_ But he knows that it's not a question of what Bucky loves more, just a sick brain. Sam knows, he has one too. His just works differently than Bucky's. He wonders that if they both really got clean, would he even love Bucky at all?

 

“Where you working now?” Bucky asks. They’re both naked and in bed. Sam feels the high from the weed evening out. He’s kind of itchy to break into something else. 

“I do security at the Nets stadium.”

Bucky whistles, “Sounds like a good gig.”

Sam makes a noncommittal sound. “It’s not year round. I work with some cool dudes though.”

“You gonna try to keep your job this time?” Bucky asks. When he’s around Sam has a habit of dropping everything for him. Normally his job goes first. He still cleans himself up enough to show up at his mom’s for dinner twice a month and blames the shadows under his eyes on nightmares. 

“Maybe.” Because Sam doesn’t care right now. He stuffs his face into Bucky’s neck and breathes. Sam’s always loved the way Bucky’s skin smelled there, ever since they were little kids. They used to sleep like this, curled up in each other with Sam’s face in Bucky’s neck. Sam’s loved Bucky for as long as he can remember. 

 

“It’s too late for blow.” Sam says, shaking his head at the baggie full of white powder. 

Bucky grunts. “Should’ve gotten rock.”

“Ugh, I hate crack.” Sam says, stuffing chips in his mouth. He’s got the munchies still since he hasn’t given into them yet. “Makes me go crazy.”

“That’s kinda the point, babe.” 

They settle on some vicodin. They swallow the pills, because snorting tylenol does fucked up shit to their already used and abused noses. They settle in to watch whatever’s on TV while they wait for them to kick in.

A while later, Sam feels it start. His limbs get lose and the little headache he’s gotten from smoking creeps out of him. His eyes feel a little heavy. He rests his head on Bucky’s shoulder. Bucky makes a happy noise and pets Sam’s head gently. 

“I missed you.” Sam says, and if he wasn’t so high he would probably start crying with how hard it hits him. Missing Bucky has been such a force in his life for so long that he doesn’t feel it until it stops. “I’ve been missing you for so long.”

Bucky gives the top of Sam’s head a kiss, “You miss me when you were over in that desert smoking pure opium?”

“I only did it like, twice. And yeah, even then.” 

Bucky’s quiet for a while. Sam lets his eyes fall shut. 

“Why don’t you just move on?” he asks Sam quietly.

“Because I don’t know how to live without you anymore.”

 

They do coke for breakfast the next morning. Bucky sings Frank Ocean and makes Sam laugh. Sam starts to clean his house, since that’s what he always does when he’s coked up. 

He’s scrubbing the floorboards in his living room when Bucky says, “We should leave the city.”

“What now?” Sam asks, looking up from the floor. 

Bucky’s working his jaw, grinding his teeth together. His hands are clenched in his lap. He gets real stiff and closed off when he does blow, but when you get him talking, he doesn’t shut up. 

“Nah. We can’t anyway. I bet they’ve shut down the trains from the snow.”

“Well when then?”

“When we get ourselves together.” 

“Oh, you going to rehab for me now, Buck?” 

Bucky huffs a laugh, “Not for you, for myself, Sammy.” Sam can hear it- _you can’t do this for your boyfriend, Sam. You have to do it for yourself._ “And still no. I don’t need rehab.”

“You probably do.” Sam says, returning his attention back to the floor. 

“I need a fresh start. That’s what I need. We can move to California. Lie in the sun all day, meet new people.”

Sam admits it does sound nice. “We can live by the ocean in a nice apartment and you can learn to surf. You have the hair for it.”

Bucky smiles, bright, grinding his teeth through it. “We can get a cat.”

Sam makes a face and Bucky laughs hard. “You’ve never let me get a cat.”

“Because I don’t want to have to deal with their hair everywhere.” 

“Maybe I’ll let you get a cat if we can make it to California.”

“I wanna live in San Diego. I want one of those houses with all the rounded edges. You know what I mean?” Bucky lights a cigarette. 

“Mhm. They’re cute.” then Sam lets the amused smile fall of his face and says seriously, “But Bucky, baby, you and I know that you’re gonna take you and your thousand pounds of emotional baggage with you wherever we go.”

Bucky exhales the cigarette smoke hard. “You wanna do another line?”

 

It takes them three days to get through all the coke with some weed mixed in. Then they crash for an entire day straight, intertwined in bed, breathing each other in. 

Saturday Sam has to go to work so he makes them both eat something and gets ready. When he’s getting ready to leave the house he stares Bucky down for a long, tense minute. Bucky stubs out his cigarette. “What, sweetheart?”

“Promise me you won’t leave for good while I’m gone. Go re-up if you want. Get more blow. Just come back, okay?” 

Bucky rolls his eyes and smiles like that isn’t what he’s been doing for the last three years of Sam’s fucking life. Sam kisses him long and slow anyway, just in case. It doesn’t take another addict to know that you can’t trust an addict, even one that you love. 

He walks out of the front door backwards so that he can see Bucky’s face until he has to shut the door. 

 

When he gets back Bucky’s nodded out on his couch. Sam breathes a long sigh of relief and slams the front door extra hard to wake Bucky up.

“Hey...hey baby!” He slurs. 

“I see you either left the house or managed to sneak some dope in here like a junkie squirrel, hiding your goods for the winter.” But Sam says it with a smile on his face, since he's spent the past few hours panicking about Bucky being gone again and he can’t help himself.

He takes Bucky's face in his hands and kisses him. Bucky moans into it. Sam pulls away before it progresses into all out sex (just barely). “You shoot up?” He asks. Bucky's pupils are pinned, so small. His eyes are so icy blue. Sam lets himself get lost in them. 

Bucky shakes his head, meeting Sam’s gaze. The eye contact doesn't mean shit. Bucky holds out his arms for Sam to inspect. He runs his fingers along the track marks on the insides of his elbows. They're faded, just memories- wounds to be reopened when Bucky feels like it again. Sam knows that Bucky's not dumb enough to shoot up there, but believes him anyway. He gives Bucky another kiss. 

“What did you get for me?”

“This _dick_.” Bucky says, grabbing his crotch. 

Sam stifles a laugh behind a smile. "You're awful. Come on. Really."

“Some ecstasy.” He holds up a baggie with two bright pink pills inside it. Sam hasn't done e since he got back from war. One of the guys he met at the VA sold it- said it was good for PTSD. 

He takes the baggie and gives Bucky a big smile. They're going to have some fun. 

They're completely naked in bed. Sam’s running his hands through Bucky's hair while he draws circles into his stomach and chest. Sam didn't know that a finger on his skin could feel so good. Every nerve ending in his body is on fire. He loves it. He loves Bucky too. Always has. Always will. 

“I wanna suck you off.” Bucky says. Sam lets him, feeling the deliciously good slide of Bucky's mouth on him. It takes him forever to get off, but Bucky doesn't mind. Sam knows that he'd do anything- most things for him. The things that don't really matter.

Bucky fucks him after he comes. Sam doesn't get hard again, but he sees stars the entire time.

 

Sam loves when Bucky stays with him and it isn't just because he loves Bucky. Sam loves not feeling anything but good. He loves being so fucked up that the nightmares stop. He loves not feeling like his chest is being weighed down by a hundred pounds of bullshit. He loves feeling nothing. It's probably why he lets Bucky keep coming back again and again. 

It only makes sense that the good stops eventually.

It's been two weeks, when Bucky gets the itch again. He slept on his shoulder wrong. Woke up and ate two Vicodin, then snorted a third.

“It _hurts_.” He says, bouncing his leg so hard Sam’s shaking along with him on the couch.

Sam intertwines their fingers. “Let me rub it for you.” His stomach dropped out the first time he saw Bucky rolling his shoulder and wincing hours earlier. He plastered himself onto Bucky’s side, knowing what's coming.

“It won't help Sam! Nothing helps!” Bucky puts his hand in his hair and pulls it hard.

“Baby..” Sam starts. He's starting to cry and immediately feels like digging around in Bucky’s black bag for something to take the inevitable pain away. 

“Sam you know I gotta. I'm sorry.” He looks so sad, so defeated that Sam almost abandons the one boundary he has with Bucky and tells him to go get himself some heroin and bring it back. He can't though. He can't. They've done it before. Sam doesn't sleep, he doesn't eat, he just watches Bucky waste away in front of him. He can't watch Bucky kill himself again. He can't. 

“Please don't go.” Sam says, tears streaming down his face. He hasn't begged like this in years. He doesn't know what's wrong with him. Maybe he's usually more high or maybe Bucky just sneaks out while he's sleeping. He can't remember.

“I love you.” Bucky says, grabbing his face with both hands and resting his forehead on Sam’s. “I love you so fucking much. Til the day I die.”

Sam kisses him. “You're gonna die this time.”

“Maybe not.”

“I have money saved for your funeral.” And Sam knows it's a fucked up thing to say, but he's fucked up and Bucky's fucked up and this is all so damn fucked up. 

“You would.” Bucky croaks. 

“Because I love you. But you're killing yourself.”

“I know.” Bucky kisses him again. “Start saving for a house in Cali. This is gonna be the last time.”

Sam shakes his head. Bucky's full of shit. It’s not his fault. It’s not his fault. It’s a disease. His brain is sick. Sam fucking loves him. 

Bucky whimpers and kisses Sam again. Then he stands and gathers whatever he has strewn about the apartment and stuffs it in his backpack. 

“Take my coat. It will keep you warm.” Sam says from the couch, knuckling at his eyes. 

Bucky goes to the closet and slides it on. It's too big on him. Bucky used to be bigger than him, before all of this.

“I love you.” Bucky says again. He looks like it's paining him to tear his eyes away from Sam, but he does anyway. He trains them on the front door and walks straight out of Sam’s life. Again.

 

Giving up isn't something that Sam Wilson does easily. So giving up on living after Bucky went to go do heroin some more wasn't something he did. This time was better than the others, maybe because Bucky didn't stay too long. Sam got a second job at the corner store on his block. He's even started looking up how to use his G.I. Bill online. He thinks he'd be a pretty good therapist. He sure has enough life experience. 

He's spending more time down at the VA and one of his new friends even got him to go jogging with him. Dude runs like he's the flash or some shit, but he's funny, so Sam runs with him anyway.

Sam won't tell anyone, but besides the shoebox under his bed where he stashes the money in case something happens to Bucky, he's added a second and labeled it ‘house in California.’ He's already saved a hundred dollars.

It's starting to get warm again, so he's taking a long walk around his neighborhood. The fresh air feels good on his skin. He likes that he only has to wear a hoodie. He never did get a new coat.

His phone rings. It's a number he doesn't recognize but he answers it anyway out of habit. 

“Hello?”

“Hey baby. It's me. Uh listen. You think you might wanna visit me in rehab this Saturday? My therapist was telling me about San Fran. I think we’d both like it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Addiction is not curable, it can be treated. 
> 
> "Acceptance leads to recovery. We lose our fear of the unknown. We are set free."  
> _N.A. basic text pg 16
> 
> "Just for today I will be unafraid, my thoughts will be on my new associations,  
> people who are not using and who have found a new way of life.  
> So long as I follow that way, I have nothing to fear. "  
> -N.A. basic text pg 90
> 
>  
> 
> [ The VA's substance abuse treatment program. ](http://www.mentalhealth.va.gov/res-vatreatmentprograms.asp)
> 
>  
> 
> [ Narcotics Anonymous ](www.NA.org)
> 
>  
> 
> Follow me on [ tumblr ](unclesteeb.tumblr.com)


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